It’s Wednesday, March 4. This is The Front Page, your daily window into the world of The Free Press—and our take on the world at large. Today: River Page on the internet’s favorite Iran “expert” and his web of conspiracy theories. Ted Gioia on how, in the age of AI, human touch is cool—and profitable—again. Olivia Reingold and Maya Sulkin report on a troubling spate of antisemitic threats at an elite American university. And much more.
But first: What is Trump’s endgame in Iran?
Hundreds dead in Iran, six U.S. service members killed, strikes on cities across the region, and major trade routes disrupted as oil prices skyrocket. As the war in the Middle East rages on, the whole world has the same questions: How long will it last—and what will come next?
According to Michael Doran, it’s possible to glimpse the path forward through the fog of war. He says the war will end one way: with a call from Trump to Benjamin Netanyahu to say, “Bibi, it’s time for a ceasefire.”
Iran knows this, and their strategy is simple: Force Trump’s hand sooner rather than later by raising the stakes at every opportunity. At stake is nothing less than control of Iran and the future of the Middle East. Read Michael’s piece for a sense of where this is headed:
What are the rules dictating Trump’s decision-making in this war? Elliott Abrams, who served as Special Representative for Iran in Trump’s first administration, dives into that question in his piece for us today. Complicating the picture: a president constantly rewriting his own rule book when it comes to “forever wars,” boots on the ground, and regime change. So what are the president’s red lines, and will he stick to them?
When the Islamic Republic came to power in 1979, it looked to remake the Middle East, writes Aaron MacLean. After the past few days, we can now say it has succeeded, though not in the ways it had hoped.
Israel and Arab nations are more aligned than ever, while the Iran regime is on the ropes and lashing out at just about everyone in the region. Iran is more isolated than ever. This isn’t just the story of a regime that overplayed its hand once or twice; it’s an exhaustive account of just how badly they blew it.
This war didn’t start on Saturday, argues Michael Oren, Israel’s former ambassador to the United States. It started in 1979. And if the Iranian revolution was the beginning, October 7, 2023 was the beginning of the end.
That was when the regime made a potentially fatal miscalculation. The regime triggered a catastrophic backlash with what Tehran and its proxies called the Al-Aqsa Flood. Today, Michael traces the tinderbox ignited with Trump’s February 28 attacks on Iran back to October 7, a time when Iran seemed much stronger and more sure of itself, before the regime’s house of cards collapsed.
—The Editors
Meet Xueqin Jiang, the Harvard-affiliated lecturer who predicted in 2024 that Donald Trump would win the presidency and start a war with Iran, and then lose that war. Now that the first two predictions have come true, Jiang is back in the spotlight, and the internet is abuzz about his third prophecy. But there’s just one problem, writes River Page. Jiang is a conspiracy theorist who has managed to connect the war with Iran to the shadowy meddling of the Illuminati, the Freemasons, and yes, the Jews. So why does he get a mainstream audience for his views on Iran?
There’s a tiny bookstore in Birmingham, Alabama, with 5,000 global customers on its email list. Why? Because it has a secret weapon: Every single book is personally signed by its author. From musicians peddling vinyl records to the revival of concierge services, the age of AI is driving a resurgence for flesh-and-blood alternatives. “Human beings have more prestige than ever,” writes Ted Gioia, “and they get it just by showing up.”
A spate of antisemitic threats have rocked the Jewish community at Stanford University this week. One email warned of a “Holocaust 2.0,” ending with the note that the death of Jews would be “a major win for the world and for the cleansing of human genetics.” Olivia Reingold and Maya Sulkin talked to students and staff in Stanford’s Jewish community to make sense of the threats, what comes next, and whether the antisemitism unleashed at elite colleges is here to stay.
Coleman Hughes Live in Atlanta
On March 9, join The Free Press’s Coleman Hughes for a special conversation at Buckhead Theatre in Atlanta. Together with MLK Jr. biographer Jonathan Eig and civil rights pioneer Ambassador Andrew Young, he’ll explore what Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy can teach us today, at a time when America has seemed to reach a boiling point. This event brings together three extraordinary voices in a legendary venue for an unforgettable conversation. It’s our first-ever event in Atlanta, and one you won’t want to miss.
MORE FROM THE FREE PRESS
THE NEWS
The Pentagon has released the names of four soldiers killed in an Iranian attack on a U.S. military base in Kuwait over the weekend. Among the slain are Captain Cody A. Khork, 35, of Winter Haven, Florida; Sergeant 1st Class Noah L. Tietjens, 42, of Bellevue, Nebraska; Sergeant 1st Class Nicole M. Amor, 39, of White Bear Lake, Minnesota; and Sergeant Declan J. Coady, 20, of West Des Moines, Iowa. Two other soldiers who were also killed have yet to be identified.
Mojtaba Khamenei, son of the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is expected to replace his father as Supreme Leader of Iran, The New York Times reported yesterday. Officials familiar with the deliberations said the clerics responsible for choosing him had reservations about announcing the selection for fear that he would be targeted by the United States and Israel.
Two top aides to Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer were forced to resign on Monday amid an internal investigation into allegations of misconduct by senior officials in the department. The investigation came after the New York Post published a whistleblower’s complaint accusing Chavez-DeRemer of drinking on the job, having an affair with a member of her security detail, and using department resources for personal travel.
A jury found a Georgia father guilty of murder and manslaughter yesterday for a school shooting his son committed in 2024 that killed four. Prosecutors said Colin Gray, the father of Colt Gray, failed to address his son’s anger issues, ignored his obsession with school shooters, and even gave him an assault-style rifle as a Christmas gift.
A federal judge ruled yesterday that the Trump administration’s fight to stop New York City’s congestion pricing toll was unlawful, handing the state a major win for its traffic reduction program, the first of its kind in the U.S. The ruling comes after months of threats from Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy to withhold funding and approval for transit projects if the toll continued.
Midterm primary voters in North Carolina, Texas, and Arkansas headed to the polls yesterday in several races, with James Talarico winning over Jasmine Crockett, carrying the state’s Democratic voters by seven points . Meanwhile, Trump has not yet endorsed a candidate in the Lone Star State’s crowded Republican primary.
Department of Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem defended her agency’s immigration enforcement strategy in a Senate hearing yesterday after drawing bipartisan criticism, including from Republican senator Thom Tillis, who called her tenure at DHS “a disaster.” Noem doubled down on her defense of ICE officers’ actions, claiming the agents “are facing a serious and escalating threat as a result of deliberate mischaracterizations of their heroic work.”
The Trump administration is quietly assembling a criminal indictment of Nicolás Maduro’s successor Delcy Rodríguez, including corruption and money laundering charges, Reuters reported yesterday. Sources familiar with the matter say the move aims to bolster leverage with Venezuela following the January ouster of former president Maduro.
Right now, Democrats are forcing a vote to be held which would immediately halt any additional American strikes on Iran — effectively grounding our military in the middle of a fight.
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